A small selection of how Advent and Christmas was celebrated around the United Reformed Church.
National Synod of Wales
An art installation outside Rivertown United Reformed Church brought smiles to passers-by over Christmas.
Designed by the Revd Johnny O’Hanlon, Minister of Rivertown URC, wooden angel wings were installed on the front of the building.
Situated on a busy high street, the wings proved a hit with the community with many people stopping by to take selfies with them.
Johnny explained: “Happy people at an ‘angel making worship’ helped assemble the wings and produced ‘dolly peg’ angels which decorated the inside of the church.”
Gallery images: Rivertown URC.
Southern Synod
Members of Emmanuel Eastbourne, a URC and Methodist local ecumenical partnership, gathered at Eastbourne District General Hospital to cheer patients up with carol singing and to share the Good News of Christ’s birth.
The Revd Memona Shabaz, Minister of the Church, said: “Visitors, staff and patients appreciated our visit and some also joined us in singing.”
Across the synod, at St Paul’s Church in Thamesmead, 37 young people and adults were confirmed.
The Revd Bridget Banks, Southern Synod Moderator, preached at the church, an LEP between Anglicans, Methodists and the URC, and encouraged the young people in their walk of faith.
Wessex Synod
Reflecting over past years, the Revd Charles Meachin found a photo over the Christmas period which showed the Revd Dr Robert Latham, the last chairman of the London Missionary Society (LMS), commissioning the last LMS Missionary Jean Fisher, and presenting her with a Bible at the High Leigh Conference Centre.
Dr Latham, General Assembly Moderator 1979-1980, also chaired the negotiations for the setting up of the Council for World Mission.
Charles said: “Robert was very involved in the negotiations for the union of the Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church of England resulting in the United Reformed Church in 1972 and later became the Secretary of the Church Life Department, General Secretary and then General Assembly Moderator.”
Church House
The annual tradition of the United Reformed Church joining with members of our partner churches in the Pfalz (Palatinate) region of Germany to share in an online Advent service has continued for several years. The partnership between the two churches started in the 1950s.
Recorded by a virtual choir for the URC-Pfalz online Advent Service 2024 is a rendition of Comfort, comfort now my people is an Advent hymn, paraphrasing Isaiah 40:1-5, and originally written in German by Johann Olearius (1671).
It is set to a Psalm tune by 16th-century French composer Louis Bourgeois and the lyrics were translated into English by Catherine Winkworth (1862). The song is one of two hymns recorded for the service.
The other Joy to the World, was written by English minister and hymnist Isaac Watts, and is based on a Christian interpretation of Psalm 98 and Genesis 3. The song was first published in 1719 in Watts’s collection ‘The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament’. Watts was born 350 years ago in July 1674, and a chair that he used can be found (but not sat upon) at Westminster College, Cambridge.
South Western
Twenty people enjoyed lunch on Christmas day courtesy of Wellington Churches Together.
A three-course meal was cooked by Emily and Chris Seabourne assisted by their two daughters and a team of helpers who helped to serve at Wellington URC.
The gathering was also paid a special visit by the Mayor, Cllr Janet Lloyd, and her husband Ian who stopped by to wish them all a Merry Christmas.
National Synod of Wales
Drag queens hosted their seventh “Dragged to Church” Christmas event at St Andrews URC.
Over two days, the “carol service with a difference” raised £18,000 to help aid repairs to the church caused by Storm Darragh.
Image: Wayne & Wyburn/Dragged to Church.